[fritsch]

I tried the second build also. Here is something interesting: when the track is played first, it is 16-bit 48kHz Stereo. If you stop the playback and then play it again the output is 192kHz 5.1 (24-bit as reported in the Channel Status Bits). But there is a problem, the system sounds in Kodi are distorted. It goes back to normal after you exit from Kodi.

http://pastebin.com/L9FZiFxz (lines 763--> and 866-->)

Yeah - most likely in combination with "Optimized" ... FW bug - as we really don't do anything besides opening the audio track ...

File a bug with nvidia please, perhaps they care to fix it :-)

[Koying]

According to the Shield audio policy (/system/etc/audio_policy.conf), float / HR audio is only supported in stereo:

Code:

hr_audio {
        sampling_rates 96000|88200|176400|192000
        channel_masks AUDIO_CHANNEL_OUT_STEREO
        formats AUDIO_FORMAT_PCM_24_BIT_PACKED|AUDIO_FORMAT_PCM_FLOAT
        devices AUDIO_DEVICE_OUT_AUX_DIGITAL
        flags AUDIO_OUTPUT_FLAG_DIRECT
      }

[fritsch]

Cool thx.

[cesarious]

Just a dumb question... what if Kodi/SPMC, in cases like stereo 24/96 .flac files, acted as a file explorer to trigger playback with the internal Shield TV audio player instead of its own engine?.

Just tried X-plore and, surprisingly, it works and the receiver recognizes the PCM stream as 96 khz 2/0/.0 (Denon 4520, Shield TV -still in 3v3.2- connected through HDMI straight forward) .

Would a work around like this work? (feasible to program with not much effort?/at least consider it?).

Thanks!.

[Madaudio]

If this is a stupid question, my apologies, as I am totally non-tech coding-wise.

But is this of any relevance to this discussion:

https://source.android.com/devices/audio...ent-policy

[fritsch]

Question is not stupid. Answer is: yes.

[Madaudio]

Question is not stupid. Answer is: yes.

Wow, quick reply, thank you.

Implications?

I'm assuming (correctly??) that my NAD would NOT decode flac files, unlike its ability to decode most variations of Dolby and DTS (and even DSD) and pcm(??)

So I presume it would not be feasible to hope for some app on the shield to simply do a bit-perfect pass-through of flac files.

Does what I have referenced above in any way open the door for software on the shield to decode multichannel hires flac to a PCM equivalent hires and multichannel to send via HDMI to a receiver?

Or will there still be some firmware or hardware issues to prevent apps doing this on the shield?

[fritsch]

If vendors do it right, we can output multichannel in better quality, else: nothing on us.

[Koying]

As a matter of fact, *we* cannot do better than sending floats at 192khz
As to whether the vendors firmware will handle the actual output properly, I doubt a format change on a xml config file will change much...

[fritsch]

That's obviously clear. But vendor could implement it for multichannel.

[euser464]

I'm getting in late into this discussion, but it is only recently that I have Koid/SPMC on the Shield lately. The lack of HD-audio on the on the Shield is a major issue at least for me who pursues the best possible audio experience. If I understand this correctly, the reason why we don't have support for 24/192khz is a limitation in the Android software? 

If nobody else is pushing this flaw forward, I'm willing to help out if possible and file necessary bug reports with some pointers from you guys.

[fritsch]

What has 24/192 to do with HD-Audio? HD-Audio works perfectly fine. For 2 channel output shield can do 32 bit and 192 khz - so what's your problem?

[euser464]

What has 24/192 to do with HD-Audio? HD-Audio works perfectly fine. For 2 channel output shield can do 32 bit and 192 khz - so what's your problem?

 Hi @fritsch 

Please see my orignal post from yesterday

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...pid2686763

[fritsch]

Ah, yet another DAC. Sadly I have to tell you, you use the wrong operating system. Audiotrack only accepts "hints", e.g. kodi opens 192 khz / 32 bit Float. What it does under the hood - is totally invisible to us. HD-Audio, e.g. 8 channel / 192 khz won't work with a DAC as it is 2 pcm channels only.

Btw. you can see what we enumerate in the kodi.log. Android has no 24bit format that user can use via Audiotrack. The best you can get is 32 bit float and hope that they correctly convert back to 24 bit / 192.

See: https://developer.android.com/reference/..._PCM_FLOAT <- 32 bit float. Else they only have 16 bit and 8 bit integer formats.

Kodi decodes to 32 bit float, which is enough precision to hold any 24 bit Audio. This decoding is lossless. That works that great, that even RAW DTS encoded as flac (only idiots do something like that) is perfectly decoded as DTS by the AVR after that (don't add volume obviously).

So in short: We do the best we can. The best the platform allows.

Btw. I always like audiophiles, cause in fact I never found one that could actually hear the difference.

So please tell me:
Which of those pieces sounds better: http://fritsch.fruehberger.net/samples/audio/ <- If you don't like Metallica, check the Kyrie.

[euser464]

In that case I find it strange that nVidia are selling their product stating support for higher resolution in this table where even Kodi is included:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/d.../related/1

Stereo FLAC for Kodi up to 32-bit, 192kHz.

Is it because of the USB protocol? Or is HDMI required to reach those numbers? To be clear, I'm only using stereo output and not multichannel.

Regarding your audiophile friends, feeding them with the right equipment and audio files will probably help. Your files are encoded in the same way and there is no difference whatsoever. But right now I'm sitting at work with my $10 dollar headphones. I'm sure at home with my super expensive Audeze headphones and super expensive Audioquest cables that I "sould" be able to hear something different. Let me get back to you on that one

But lets keep this thread clean and not start any audiophile wars...